Consortium for Hall Effect Orbital Propulsion System – Phase 2 covering LOW POWER needs

Project Information

CHEOPS LOW POWER

Grant agreement ID: 101004331

DOI

10.3030/101004331

Project closed

EC signature date 5 November 2020

Start date 1 February 2021

End date 31 January 2025

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Space

Total cost

€ 5 311 430,00

EU contribution

€ 4 000 000,00

Coordinated by

SAFRAN SPACECRAFT PROPULSION
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CHEOPS LOW POWER (Consortium for Hall Effect Orbital Propulsion System – Phase 2 covering LOW POWER needs)

Reporting period: 2021-02-01 to 2022-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Low and Medium Earth Orbit (LEO/MEO) satellite market evolution sets a quick innovation pace for the satellite industry. High performances, compatibility with high production rates, adaptability and competitive prices are key issues for Europe to gain, increase and maintain a strategic position on the worldwide satellite arena. In order to match the target market segment, Low Power Electric Propulsion Systems (LP EPS) also need to be flexible: they have to be able to operate with both xenon and krypton up to 1kW.

CHEOPS LOW POWER project, based on the CHEOPS I project outputs, will deliver incremental developments for the first fully European LP EPS bringing the Thruster Unit (TU) and the Fluid Management System (FMS) to TRL7 and the Power Processing Unit (PPU) to TRL6.
The project will permit the detailed design of the different system elements (TU, PPU, FMS) by addressing the following challenges: compactness, modularity, optimized in-service life, low cost and high production rates, and flexible propellant management. Also, a multi-point qualification approach for the thruster unit enabling reduction of recurring costs through a more standard and common approach for all customers is considered. For this, CHEOPS LP will use a design to cost approach, COTS components and lean production approaches. The project will fully take advantage of new technologies and develop supporting advanced numerical design tools for electric propulsion, allowing to understand the observable behavior of a given thruster in its environment and predicting future performance. In addition, the project will achieve significant progress in setting a Hall Thruster (HT) diagnostics standard thus preparing its implementation in the future In Orbit Demonstrator (IOD).

CHEOPS LP will have a medium-term impact on the European space industry and its overall competitiveness by delivering a mature LP EPS. In the long-term the impact extends to the satellite design and manufacturing paradigm, enabling a novel approach integrating both industry and client needs since the start.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

CHEOPS LP project started in February 2021. During the first period, the project team refined the specifications of the low power propulsion system and its components to take account of actual developments in the LEO/MEO satellite market segments. The main system requirements were updated after the requests for information/proposal received from Primes since early 2021. Workshops, and co-engineering sessions with the equipment manufacturers were organized to assess the technical impact of these updates on the sub-systems and to release system and sub-system requirements and design adapted to the current market need. Evolutions and working plan to achieve the maturity levels in the upcoming development phase were presented to the Commission, Experts and PSA members during the Maturity assessment key point and agreed during the 1st annual review. The target levels and associated dates are consistent with the achievement by 2024 of a TRL7 for the low power EPS, the TU and the FMS, and of a TRL6 for the PPU (the LP EPS Functional Design Review was successfully held in July 2023, the coupling tests are planned end 2023 and the Qualification Status Review in 2024). At the end of the first period the TU, PPU and FMS operational compatibility with both Xenon and Kr up to 1kW was confirmed with performance comparable or above the state-of-the-art.

Value drivers were refined and led to analyses of system alternative architectures with improved performance and or new functionality with regards to existing concepts, to meet the target costs.

Improvements were brought to the HYPHEN-2 simulation tool by the implementation of news algorithms better representative of the plasma discharge, the thruster design and the boundary conditions. These studies included alternative propellants and the ability to estimate the system lifetime. Also, significant progress were made in the simulation time (-33%).

To study and analyze the plasma parameters, diagnostics were improved:
- Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES), which, coupled with a Collisional Radiative Model (CRM) was used during a test campaign on the LP TU and compared to Langmuir probe measurements. The similarity of the obtained internal plasma parameters validate the OES technique, as a very interesting non-invasive diagnostic for its implementation in testing facilities, and even in flight to monitor and detect in real time any drift in the key parameters.
- Time-Resolved Laser Induced Fluorescence (TR LIF), which, correlated to the TU transients or oscillatory behavior, brings precious information about the physics of the processes that cause instabilities or oscillations.

The dissemination activities led to the creation of the project public website and logo. Communication and promotional materials were produced (project templates, conference roll-up and social media - LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube). About 13 participation or presentations to a congress were done during the first period of the project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

CHEOPS LP will permit in 2024 to provide the market with EPS’s suitable to fulfil the opening LEO/MEO market worldwide and in particular the constellations market. CHEOPS works in parallel on three EPS systems which address a variety of medium and long term needs as defined by the three Large Satellite Integrators (LSI, namely TAS F, OHB & ADS) participating in the project as members of the Advisory Board. The combination of different and complementary partner profiles in the project enhances the European competitiveness to benefit from the CHEOPS LP activities through:
- the ability of the LSIs to share their immediate and future requirements so that the CHEOPS LP product developments fully answer these.
- the development of design to cost products by system suppliers which are aligned to their existing internal R&T roadmaps and have the possibility to be adjusted to future defined needs as dictated by current market needs and future market trends. Cost reductions sub-system level will drive the overall EPS recurring costs down thus having a direct competitive impact for the satellite manufacturer as will the ability to offer a standard multi-platform product.
- the strengthening of collaboration between competing organisations and the cross-fertilisation of innovative ideas and promotion of standards.

The project will bring competitive advantages along the complete European Industry supply chain to address market application:
- the increase of flexibility, the availability of more competitive PPU, the use of alternative and cheaper propellants will improve the overall EPS competitiveness, giving a significant advantage with respect to the non-European competition;
- the availability of compact and cheaper EPS solutions will allow to generalize the use of electric propulsion, with direct impacts on the launch costs, or on the payload capacities, providing key differentiators with respect to the traditional chemical monopropellant satellites.
- the project will also bring improvement on the simulation and modelling side, to help coping with new operational conditions (e.g. very low Earth orbits), use of alternative propellants, thruster clustering and other innovative options, as well as to predict performance of a given design small platforms, and understand the behavior and interactions with the satellite platform.

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